Dead on Impact

The Demise of an Interfaith Lobby

by Mark Tooley

For 25 years it was the organized public policy voice of liberal religion
in the nation’s capital. Interfaith Impact, based in the United Methodist
Building on Capitol Hill, had a substantial staff and included 40 religious
constituencies, including all the major mainline Protestant churches, several
Catholic orders, Unitarians, Jewish groups, the American Muslim Council, the
National Council of Churches (NCC), and the ecumenical Church Women United.
Its highest profile activity was the annual Capitol Hill Briefing, when religious
activists from all over the country would flock to Washington to hear major
liberal political spokesmen, such as Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

Interfaith Impact was the leader in organizing religious people behind liberal
causes: a larger welfare state, abortion rights, opposition to US military initiatives,
gay rights, opposition to organized school prayer, etc.

But in 1995, Interfaith Impact went belly-up. Its mainline Protestant supporters,
themselves financially constrained, pulled the plug, firing the staff and engulfing
themselves in two years of litigation with the organization’s executive
director, James Bell. A United Church of Christ minister, Bell claimed his and
the other major mainline denominations had subverted Interfaith Impact for the
purpose of shutting it down. The courts, unwilling to interfere in interchurch
squabbles, dismissed his lawsuit in 1997.

A Somber Mood

Today, the Interfaith Impact Foundation still exists as a shell organization
with no full-time staff. Until 1999, its annual briefings in Washington, D.C.
continued, organized by the NCC, the mainline lobby offices, and the Graymoor
Ecumenical Institute, which provided Father V. Paul Ojibway of the Franciscan
Friars of the Atonement as a part-time staffer.

But last year’s briefing may have been the last. None is scheduled for
this year. According to some, the mainline church offices in Washington, D.C.
are virtually incommunicado. Personality clashes, a lack of leadership, financial
constraints, and the absence of unifying causes in the post-cold war world have
created a frosty atmosphere in the ecumenical world. That freeze was accentuated
by a heavy-handed and unwelcome attempt by the NCC to fill the vacuum in the
wake of Interfaith Impact’s demise.

Rebuffed by its member denominations, and now forced by steep deficits to
curtail its own Washington presence, the NCC has abdicated its leadership role
among the Washington church lobby offices.

Physically, Interfaith Impact’s headquarters building has never looked
better. The United Methodist Building has been recently renovated, its white
marble floors and walls sparkling in the bright Washington sun. But the mood
inside among its religio-political tenants is somber. And perhaps nothing more
embodies the decline of liberal religious politicking in the nation’s
capital than the decline and fall of Interfaith Impact.

The Last Syncretism

The failure of Interfaith Impact to develop a sustainable post-cold war message
that would unify the Religious Left was amply demonstrated at its last Washington
“Justice in Politics” briefing held in April 1999. There was the
usual dose of liberal political themes, but also more than usual homosexual
advocacy and, more unusually, syncretistic worship that exceeded even Interfaith
Impact’s traditional theological ambiguity.

The several hundred participants were urged to resist welfare reform, fight
for more US funding for the United Nations, oppose privatization of Social Security,
end US trade sanctions against Cuba, North Korea, and Iraq, and enact environmental
regulations in response to the supposed threat of global warming.

Although the participants were almost all Christian and Jewish, the opening
worship service was led by a Hindu philosophy teacher. Arpita Arfidah, a former
Catholic turned Hindu, chanted “Omm” and other incantations in Hindi.
“Divinity is inherent in the hearts of all beings,” she said, later
urging listeners to protect and serve humanity, the animal kingdom, and the
vegetable kingdom.

Raj Want Sing, a Sikh who heads the Guru Foundation, echoed Arfidah’s
themes in his sermon. Every human is divine in origin, he said. In Sing’s
prayer to “our common Father,” he said, “You are the one who
makes us oriented towards you and you are the one who causes us to go away from
you. We understand this is a game. This is a nice play you are playing.”

Sing’s notion of a capricious deity hardly resembled the God of Christians
and Jews. Yet his audience seemed not to object. Besides, politics and not theology
was the focus of “Justice in Politics.”

More Sexual Liberation

One aspect of that political agenda was the legitimization of homosexuality
within both the Church and society. Homosexual activists and their allies were
encouraged to caucus. One workshop was devoted to activism on behalf of the
Equal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would equate sexual preference
with race and gender in protecting against workplace discrimination.

Another workshop was called “Claiming the Moral High Ground: Supporting
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues from a Faith Perspective.”
Lee Walzer of the World Congress of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Jewish Organizations
complained that the Judeo-Christian tradition is a “total misnomer”
as the “Religious Right” uses it. “Pleasure that comes from
sexuality is holy,” Walzer said. “Failure to provide sexual fulfillment
is sin and grounds for divorce.” He said many Jews support “gay
rights” merely because conservative Christians are opposed.

Episcopal priest Patricia Ackerman of New York said she was “out”
by age 15 and was determined that the Bible was not going to “ostracize”
her. She recounted gratefully that Union Seminary in New York had included her
“partner” in seminary activities. And she fretted that “many
people” are now leaving the Church since the worldwide communion of Anglican
bishops took a stand against homosexual practice at their gathering last year
at Lambeth, England. “We will be seen as perverse underlings until we
get rites and rights to marriage,” Ackerman warned.

Cedric Harmon, a student at United Methodism’s Wesley Seminary in Washington,
D.C., complained that many in the black church are “bashing” homosexuals.
“Don’t put a faith label on bigotry,” he implored. “The
closet is not a place to be any longer. . . . Misrepresentation
of the Bible is coming to an end.” He expressed hope that someday he would
be able to attend a legally recognized same-sex ceremony.

Presbyterian elder Chris Purdom identified himself as a heterosexual who had
joined the movement for homosexuality’s acceptance. “Christians
are perceived as the problem,” he moaned, as many liberal-minded people
view Christians as bigoted. Purdom expressed appreciation for the work of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington office and criticized the Institute
on Religion and Democracy for undermining the advocacy work of mainline denominations.

Workshop leader Laura Montgomery-Rutt of Equal Partners in Faith said she
was a “proud” United Methodist. “We’ve had the wonderful
experience of [United Methodist] ministers standing up and performing same-sex
unions,” she enthused. Nobody in the workshop explained or defended official
church positions opposing homosexual practice. Purdom regretted that Presbyterians
have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexual
clergy.

Money Matters

Despite all the talk about homosexuality, economic issues seemed to dominate
most of the plenary sessions and workshops. “Welfare reform legislation
was a gross violation of human rights,” exclaimed Kathy Thornton, a Sister
of Mercy who leads NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby in Washington. “You
and I now live in a country where it is optional to care about people who are
poor.”

Lisa Crooms of Howard University School of Law alleged that welfare reform
was part of a plan to “criminalize” the poor. She characterized
American society as believing that “All [the poor] need is a swift kick
in the rear.” She claimed that poverty does not result from “individual
failings or personal responsibility” but should be blamed on “systemic
oppression.” She bewailed the high prison population, saying many persons
are incarcerated for “reasons largely beyond their control.”

Crooms contrasted the victims in prison with a supposed criminal like Microsoft’s
Bill Gates, who is “responsible for extraordinary amounts of economic
crime.” The amassing of great wealth is the sort of crime that should
outrage society, she asserted. She also cited New York Mayor Rudolf Giuliani’s
administration of welfare reform as “criminal,” and predicted either
US litigation or United Nations action against him.

Andrew Young expressed hope that America would come to see poverty as “immoral”
in a way that slavery and segregation are now viewed. Former Labor Secretary
Robert Reich and other speakers urged policies that would supposedly eliminate
poverty through government programs and regulation, such as increased minimum
wages and a national health care program.

Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne said conservatives believe
reduced government will fuel increased private charity for the needy. “My
faith tells me we should regard such a claim with skepticism,” he said.
“I believe the welfare state is our conscience. We won’t do these
things individually so we rely on each other.” Dionne was also concerned
that the term “family values” implied “homophobia” or
“an attack on equal rights for women.” But he urged “progressive
churches” to be in dialogue with their “conservative brethren.”

Maria Echaveste, Deputy Chief of Staff to President Clinton, defended the
administration’s domestic policies before church groups that had sharply
criticized Clinton for cooperating with welfare reform. Calling the President’s
approach “incrementalism,” she said Clinton had gotten what social
programs he could extract from a Congress she believes is indifferent to poor
people. She specifically criticized Congress for not supporting more widespread
federal childcare programs. “We have an ideological view that the challenge
of raising children is the family’s responsibility and the government
should stay out of it,” Echaveste noted with exasperation. What the administration
is able to accomplish depends on what supportive activists do outside Washington,
she said.

War & Spiritual Exhaustion

Although most speakers seemed to be in consensus over economic issues, there
was disagreement over the then ongoing US war in Kosovo. Congressman Dennis
Kucinich questioned the “strategy of continuous bombing” since it
would result in an “ecological catastrophe” in the Balkans.

But Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic emphatically declared that
the war in Kosovo was being waged for “moral reasons” and would
require ground troops. He expressed doubt that “our leaders have either
the courage or the clarity to lead us in such a task.” And he predicted
the end result would be an “appeasing compromise” and an insoluble
refugee crisis.

Wieseltier’s comments must have discomfited many in his audience. Most
of the participating religious groups in the briefing criticized the war, not
for clear strategic or moral reasons, but because they reflexively distrust
United States-led military initiatives. Instead, they implausibly look to the
United Nations for leadership.

“Justice in Politics” to some extent spotlighted the divisions
and ennui that exist within the Religious Left. Other than automatic support
for the United Nations and multilateralism, liberal church activists are not
generally united on or excited about foreign policy issues. The seeming success
and popularity of welfare reform preclude any new federal expansion of the welfare
state.

Homosexuality remains as one of the few issues that arouse the passions of
church activists in search of a provocative cause. The Religious Left’s
sharp disagreement with the official teachings of and majority opinions within
the denominations for which they claim to speak will likely inhibit their effectiveness.

And the high profile given to religions outside the Jewish and Christian traditions
confirms many suspicions that syncretistic visions of earthly utopia, rather
than any firm concept of the biblical Kingdom of God, were the primary motivator
for the Religious Left’s participants in “Justice in Politics.”

But more revealingly, this perhaps final performance of Interfaith Impact
showcased the political and spiritual exhaustion of America’s Religious
Left. Its theological ambiguity, created initially to foster unity, has instead
ensured its downfall.

“Dead on Impact” first appeared in the March 2000 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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